Behzod Abduraimov takes an alternative route while outlining his career path

Behzod Abduraimov was all set to attend New York’s Juilliard School, a natural destination for any highly promising keyboard talent. But the native of Uzbekistan, then 15, did something completely unexpected.

After just one masterclass at the International Piano Academy, a summer program in Lake Como, Italy, he decided instead to pursue his studies at an almost unknown school just outside Kansas City, Missouri — Park University.

What the academy and university had in common was fellow Uzbek native Stanislav Ioudenitch, the co-winner of the gold medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Along with his top-level performing career, he has become known as a master keyboard pedagogue.

“I decided this is it,” Abduraimov said. “This is the man I have to study with. It was a big discovery for me. The things he told me about — I had never heard before.”

That decision has clearly paid off. Now 35 years old, Abduraimov ranks among the world’s premier concert pianists.

No stranger to Chicago, he has performed twice at the Ravinia Festival and appeared on the Symphony Center Presents Piano series in 2019. After a COVID-triggered delay, he finally made his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut in 2024, under guest conductor Hannu Lintu.

Abduraimov will return to Chicago for a recital on the SCP Piano series on Nov. 2. He replaces Beatrice Rana, who had to withdraw due to personal circumstances. His program will consist of Brahms’ Vier Klavierstücke, Op. 119; Czerny’s Variations on a theme by Rode, Op. 33; Liszt’s Après une Lecture du Dante (Fantasia quasi Sonata); Debussy’s Suite bergamasque (which includes Clair de lune), and Stravinsky, Three Movements from Petrushka.

Abduraimov grew up in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, a central Asian country and former Soviet republic that borders Afghanistan. He began studying piano when he was 5, first with his mother and later with Tamara Popovich (1926-2010), a longtime teacher at the State Conservatory of Uzbekistan and Uspensky Music School. 

As previously noted, he traveled to the United States as a teenager to study with Ioudenitch, the founder and artistic director of Park University’s International Center for Music. “That was certainly one of the best decisions I have ever made,” Abduraimov said.

Just three years later in 2009, his faith in Ioudenitch was validated when Abduraimov won the London International Piano Competition, and his career was launched. A year later, after touring China with conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Abduraimov won another, smaller competition and was signed by the artist management firm HarrisonParrott and the Decca Classics record label. His career has soared ever since.

In a 2019 review of an Abduraimov recital in New York City, critic Anthony Tommasini zeroed in on his “stunning performance” of Franz Liszt’s daunting Sonata in B Minor, which the composer originally dedicated to Robert Schumann. “With prodigious technique and rhapsodic flair,” Tommasini wrote in the New York Times, “Mr. Abduraimov dispatched the work’s challenges, including burst upon burst of arm-blurring octaves, with eerie command. I was even more impressed by how he conveyed the structure of this single-movement yet boldly episodic piece.”

Though his principal residence remains in Tashkent, Abduraimov continues to serve as artist-in-residence at Park University, and he returns Kansas City regularly when he is in the United States. “I have a lot of friends there, and it’s like my home base in the States,” he said.

Because Uzbekistan was part of the Soviet Union, the country’s keyboard heritage is tied closely to that of Russia, which is known for its big concertos and often muscular style. Abduraimov does frequently play the concertos of Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev, and he acknowledges a debt to the Russian piano school, but he doesn’t want to be pigeonholed.

“Of course, it’s pretty close to me because this part of the world had a huge influence from Russia, the Soviet Union, but I play a variety of repertoire, not just Russian,” he said, noting that he also regularly performs works by Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Schubert and Schumann.

Abduraimov’s Russian influence and other musical interests can be heard on his second recital album on the Alpha Classics label, released in January 2024. For this “very personal” recording titled “Shadows of My Ancestors,” he chose works that represent three different aspects of his heritage: personal, musical and pianistic.

His personal side is represented by The Walls of Ancient Bukhara by Uzbek composer Dilorom Saidaminova. “It has a lot of Eastern flavor,” Abduraimov said. “I thought it would be interesting for the Western world to be introduced to the music from my native country.”

In a nod to his Russian musical ancestry is Prokofiev’s 10 Pieces from Romeo and Juliet, Op. 75. And to highlight his pianistic roots, he chose Maurice Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit, one of the “toughest pieces ever written,” he said. “It’s like an Everest. It’s a big challenge for any pianist, but I didn’t choose it because of that. It’s one of the most creative works ever written, with great sonorities and effects.”

For his third Alpha Classics album, released in May 2025, Abduraimov tackles two contrasting concertos: Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Alexey Shor’s Piano Concerto No. 1, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Vasily Petrenko. Born in Ukraine in 1970, Shor now lives primarily in the United States. Trained in mathematics (for which he earned a doctorate), he turned to composition about 12 years ago. Shor is the composer-in-residence for the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra Academie and Armenian State Symphony Orchestra. 

In the 2025/26 season, Abduraimov makes several debuts, including with the New York Philharmonic and National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., both under Gianandrea Noseda. Other concerto performances include with the Houston and Pittsburgh symphonies, as well as the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester and Hong Kong Philharmonic.

This is an updated version of an interview that was previously published on Experience CSO.